-------------FIFTH DAY, 23:35------------


Enterprise had no idea what kind of ungodly radar the planes of Mother squadron carried, but she liked it. No, loved it. 

What was that saying? A one eyed man is king in the land of the blind? But she wasn't even blind. She had search radars. 

At night, in the very very best of conditions one could see a ship at a few miles, naturally depending on size. With the radars she was used to, it could find a ship at maybe fifteen miles. 

Sadly, her new radar didn't read in either miles or nautical miles, but kilometers. It would need a bit of conversion work, but it was doable. 

God these radars were good. Blue, black and the composite Red/yellow section. She could tell individual ships from each other. Bismarck, Warspite. One owing them was probably Richelieu. 

Mother squadron gave her another few numbers she could barely believe. She did 30 knots, and the engines were at three quarter speed. Just what kind of engines are these? 

She'd find out sooner or later. Probably. 

But for now it was planning. The weather wasn't good at all. The fleets wouldn't see each other until they got very, very close. Which would mean accurate gunnery, and an absolute soup of torpedoes. She wouldn't want to be anywhere near that. 

But that was the great thing about being an aircraft carrier. She didn't have to. Then again, she was apparent bigger than the Yamato sisters, so her radar signature would be gigantic. That was worth remembering. 

Her thoughts started to wander in another direction. Night training or not, her planes would achieve basically nothing in this darkness, unless the conditions were perfect. Now, the weather was clear as it could be, but the moon was just a slim crescent. Not enough light. 

She checked the radar info again. She started to see what probably was a group of Japanese ships appearing from the south. And in front, two behemoths, easily dwarfing Bismarck, sailing at 25 knots. 

Yamato and Musashi. With just fifteen attack planes, she couldn't even hurt either of them in any meaningful way. But, if she-

No. No no no. She was with them. They were allies. 

‘I'm with them. We're allies. They mean me no harm. Yamato is my al-’

She growled a little to herself. Fuck that. She'd need to see these damn monsters before she could cooperate with them. In God we trust, others we track. 

Black section, 225 kilometers, bearing one-three-five at twenty eight knots, heading zero-seven-five. 

She was slowly falling in love with these radars. It's like they were accurate enough to direct gunfire.

Direct gunfire? 

A series of thoughts flashed through her head. A big ship in these conditions could fire at a few miles. If this data was transmitted to a big, 16-inch gun armed battleship it could fire at far beyond visual range, completely dominate an enemy fleet. 
What the radar couldn't see was wind. 

‘Wake up! Now!’

The little fairy in her chest pocket, masquerading as a captain woke to life and squeaked. 

‘Could the Mothers help us direct gunfire if we get a wind reading?’

The fairy was silent for a moment, before furiously screaming at her crew. They ran around the launcher, in complete darkness (which was a bit impressive to her) and did… things? 

Enterprise had no idea what they actually were doing, but the captain had told them, it was probably good. 

A minute later, a new reading appeared to her. Wind. Sadly, the reading only had a “?” after it. 

‘Aight, good work capt’n. We just need a reading. A reading… Bad thing is we gotta do that without letting anyone know we're here. Gonna trust our allies?’

The little fairy looked up at Enterprise with a lot of questions. 

‘Yeah, let's. Save for Saratoga, she's the one here I actually trust. Can you find me a radio frequency for the ship I'm higiting here?’

It was weird how she saw her radar. It wasn't a screen or anything. It was just there when she closed her eyes. 

A little click. The captain nods. Enterprise took a deep breath.

‘This is Shangri-la air traffic control, come in’
‘Warspite of Royal Navy! Cease with these petty jokes as once or I will-’
‘Please, I need a wind reading’

The line went silent. Which was surprising as the quality of the sound was really good. Or maybe she had just hung up. 

‘Barely noticeable. One or two, south east. Warspite out’

Barely enough to be relevant. 

This was all if she could in some way transmit all this data to the battleships, or even cruisers. And they would need to be able to use this data somehow. And considering how well everything else had worked earlier, she wasn't too optimistic.

A few minutes in, and one of the groups of allied ships had gotten dangerously close to the abyssal fleet. The friendly group had been designated as “Echo Juliet” on her radar. It was a group consisting of one battleship, two cruisers and five destroyers. 14 kilometers would be way inside the range of accurate gunfire in daytime, but it was still about three times as far as any one of them could be expected to see at night

‘Mother 3, head over to Juliet Foxtrot and see if you can get this target data transmitted to Echo Juliet 1’

EJ1 had the largest radar signature in that group, it had to be the battleship. The plane could even give a tonnage estimation, based on the damn radar signature. 30000 tons moving at almost 30 knots? That would probably be a Kongõ-class. They had… eight 14 inch guns? Nine? Enterprise wasn’t too sure, other than it was something that would definitely suck on the receiving end. 

How close would the plane need to get to work? Radio range? Enterprise didn’t know what the radio range was. She couldn’t really communicate with her fairies, not with EJ1 either. So the only way to tell if it had actually worked would be-

A series of bright flashes lit up the night far, far away. 

‘Was that…’

Another 30 seconds go by, and the night lit up again. And the radar said EJ1 was at least 13 kilometers out from the closest abyssal vessel. Way, way out of range of anything they could normally see at night. This truly did work.

“Mother 1” got vectored over to one of the 70000 ton behemoths with the group “Echo Bravo”, with 2 and 4 were sent to other groups, designated “Echo Golf” and “Echo Delta”, both centered around a ship in the 30-35000 ton class. 

The muzzle flashes could be seen from miles away, lighting up the night as if hell had come. Massive guns barked as they spat out heavy, armor piercing rounds. 

Even better was the fact the return fire was non-existent. Radar showed several of the Abyssal vessels had started maneuvering to avoid fire. Little did they know this only meant the friendly battleships could simply find something else to pour the deadly accurate fire into. 

It wasn’t long before Enterprise heard lesser, rapid booms. That was probably the secondary gun battery opening up. The IJN ships usually riple fired their secondary guns, making it sound almost like a machine gun salvo.

Cracks, pops and bangs mixed in the distance, creating a fast, uneven tune. A tune of war. 

Enterprise slowed down to a crawl and listened. She could see it. Hear it. Over there, far, far away.

She could hear the difference between shells that got fired, and when they hit and detonated. How? Wouldn't she be too far away to hear that? Did the planes do that? 

Right now, she couldn't care less. She had stopped completely to watch the fireworks. All Japanese capital ships had their own color for tracers and shells. Red, yellow, violet and green tracers colored the black night sky, turning into a light show fit for gods. 

If they dared to get this close. 

Funny how a battle could look this pretty. Like fireworks. Long, heavy, armor piercing fireworks. In different colors. 

These long lines soared like tails behind comets made out of big lumps of metal, and created fountains of red hot shrapnel, metal twisted out of shape and fire. 

Screaming, roaring fire. It's hard to win against the fire. So hard. And impossible when you're under fire. These abyssals didn't have a chance. Maybe they could see the muzzle flashes of the guns, way over the horizon. But it wouldn't help them. The ships looked like black shadows, spectres on a background of endless black water. 

Everything was deep black, or blinding light. 
Apart from Enterprise. She was the Grey Ghost after all. 

And like a ghost, nobody would see her here.

The whole thing just took an hour and a half or so before the fire died down. Had all the abyssals been sunk? Probably not. Were they even remotely competent, they’d have fled as fast as their engines could carry them. Would the Japanese ships not hunt them down? Probably not. Only four ships had been given these ungodly powers. And after way over an hour of continuous firing, they had to be running low on ammunition for their guns, right?

Her clock now shown 03:42. A good time to head back to port, to make sure it still was dark outside.

But her calm voyage home was soon to be made more exciting by blue green dots on her radar. Not blue squares, like the friendly ships, or green squares, like the hostile ships, bud blue dots. Blue would probably mean friendly ships. Enterprise didn’t know for sure what the dots were, but their speed suggested airplanes. over 250 knots? Definitely airplanes. That couldn’t see her at this distance, but she still had no intention of being seen, and floored it back to shore. Where did they come from? There were no aircraft carriers out there apart from herself, none! And these were coming from the general direction of the allied fleet. 

Battleship or cruiser launcher scout planes maybe?

Maybe, but it was many of them. Too many. They wouldn't launch all of then at once. 

One of the planes were heading her way. She'd need a distraction, and fast. 

She actually carried two other planes, “Father”. Their fuselage was identical to that one of the “Mothers”, but it lacked the big radar disc on the back. Most likely a transport plane. It was too big to fit in the magazine,or hangar rather. That meant they had to be launched off as if they were single loaded. 

Father squadron were sent on low altitude directly east, the opposite direction of land. 

With the engines running with all their might, she was back to the port in just half an hour. She picked up her heavy rigging from the water, put it all neatly away in the workshop and hurried to her room. Seeing both Saratoga and Gambier Bay huddled up and sleeping did put a smile on her face, and she would soon head for sleep as well. 

Clothes taken off, neatly folded. That’s what the sailors did, after all. Without much thought of what she had done today, she entered the mists.


-----------------------SIXTH DAY. ADMIRAL’S OFFICE. 05:14------------------


The room was completely silent. Even Kongõ, being in the same room as her dearly  beloved admiral, was dead silent. The admiral looked out over the twelve battleships in front, all with a hint of concern on their faces. The order of getting to the Admiral’s office as soon as possible, no getting changed, no getting repairs, no eating. Just get out of the water, and into the office. This was an extraordinarily rare event, and had only happened a few times before, saved for emergencies.

But this was something different. The admiral would start speaking before the door was even closed. But now, The admiral had been sitting dead silent. Not lifting a head to look at them, but instead head in hand, looking with empty eyes into the desk

‘As I’m sure you know…’ The admiral began, and trailed off again.

‘As I am sure you know, I have never had a hard time to speak my mind. But right now, I am struggling to find words. Let’s start slowly. Secretary ship Nagato?’
‘Yes Admiral!’
‘Remind me, and everyone else present how we conduct night battles?’
‘Tight formations of ships, centered around a Battleship and its support’
‘Correct. Each one of you gets escorted by smaller ships. Now, Nagato. Remind me of the night time accuracy tests conducted by the end of last year’
‘The End-Year accuracy tests, 27th of december, year 26-’
‘Nagato’ the Admiral interrupted, causing the battleship to quiet down and look a bit worried ‘Short version’
‘Yes, Admiral. Three tested ranges, at 2, 5 and 7000 meters’
‘There we are. Now!’ The admiral stood up, pushing the chair backwards and walked over to the Kongõ sisters.

The admiral looked deep into the eyes of each one of them, still speaking to Nagato

‘The Kongõ Class has the oldest targeting instruments of all Battleships here. Nagato, how does the targeting instruments of each of the individual ships in the class compare to one another?’
‘Almost perfectly identical, even if Kongõ’s were made in England. Purely based on performance, they should be identical’
‘Great! Now, during these ranges, what kind of hit percentage can we expect from a ship of the Kongõ class?’
‘Night time, clear weather 2000 meters at 23%, 14% at 5000 meters and 6% at 7000’
‘Five percent at seven kilometers! Six! Similar figure For Fusõ and Ise classes?’
‘Six percent for both, Admiral!’

The admiral had started speaking loader and louder, frustration starting to show

‘You and Mutsu?’ the admiral almost shouted
‘Eight percent!’
‘Yamato and Musashi?’
‘Eleven percent, Admiral!’

The admiral took two deep breaths and returned to the desk

‘Don’t feel bad because the figures are low. Night fighting is hard by nature, and we have trained to be better. But last, some troubles arose. Let’s start with group 10’

The Admiral walked over to Hiei and stared deep into her eyes

‘You’ The admiral began, with a completely new and somewhat more restrained voice ‘You opened fire at 01:42. There were no Abyssal vessels within 10 kilometers of anyone at that point. And yet, you started to land hits at an estimated 13.5 kilometers. And looking at the data the fairies provided, you consistently landed 3, 4 or even more hits, per salvo’

Hiei remained silent

‘You achieved almost 50% accuracy! At night! Further than anyone else on this god damn naval district can even shoot at night!’

The admiral took another two breaths to ease down just a little bit

‘The theme continues. Some minutes later, Ise started firing and landed almost 55% of shells fired, Mutsu managed nigh on 60% and Musashi seems to have found daylight where the rest of us did not, and hit 270 rounds out of the 432 fired. That puts you at 62.5%’

All the fleetgirls were quiet

‘Which is better than what you would hit at that range. During the day’

The Admiral returned to the desk. This was someone who truly despised yelling at the fleetgirls, which the admiral knew did as good as they could

With a hint of defeat and regret in the voice, the admiral continued

‘It’s not my intention to be upset. I’m not, in fact. But someone needs to tell me what the hell is going on. Speak freely, please’
‘Honored Admiral…’ Mutsu began is a soft and a gentle voice as she could ‘I couldn’t tell you what happened, but i can tell you how it looked like from where I was’
‘Please, go on’
‘I… It was as if the whole world lit up. I could see them so clear. As if they were glowing in the dark. And… and i could see their range! Speed! Heading! It...It was just to point the guns to them, and i would hit shells in every salvo’
‘Like a god, a divine wind was guiding your shells?’ The admiral sighed
‘No. No one else guided my shells. I did. As if i was gifted eyes that could see through the dark, the rain and the fog. It was a rush of power like nothing I’ve ever felt before’

The admiral looked at Mutsu with tired eyes when Ise raised her voice

‘I’m not as good of a speaker as Mutsu is, but she’s kinda spot on’

Hiei agreed with nervous nodding, and Musashi hummed slowly in agreement, in her usual cool demeanor

‘Something gave you the power of a God?’
‘I can't say for certain what that is like, but I don't think it can be much better than what I saw’

‘Very well. For the time being it seems this unknown… Ghost, sea monster is playing on our side. But I'm not comfortable in trusting it will play on our side. I don't even want to imagine what would happen if the abyssals possessed powers like this. I will set up an emergency protocol in case something like this would happen. You’re all dismissed for now, but be vigilant, and keep eyes and ears open for any information’
‘Yes admiral!’, The fleetgirls said in union, and headed out and back to their respective dormitories, probably very tired.

All apart from Ise. She hesitated for a moment, but then joined her sisters heading out from the Admirals office. 

Ise had some ideas. Her planes saw something heading back to shore in the dim morning light. And then there was the rumored incident yesterday with the unidentified American airplane. Who caught it? It was a plane, should have been a carrier. Who caught it? Carriers aren't too fast, maybe it was a smaller ship.

A carrier and a smaller ship, huh? Ise had an Idea on what to do. She also had an idea that she had been up for more than 24 hours, and been in battle for six of those. That was for tomorrow. Ise barged into her dorm, tossed her clothes on the floor and went face first into bed. 

Some hours later, Enterprise woke up as someone was knocking on on the door

‘I’m sorry for disturbing, but there is an emergency assembly in the main hall. Please do not delay’

That was probably Gangut. The voice was a bit muffled, but it seemed like her speech pattern. Enterprise looked over to the bunk bed opposite to see Gambier Bay rubbing her eyes trying and then trying to escape from the very tired Saratoga’s grip. 

‘S-sarah, get uu-up…’

Saratoga growled

‘I n-need to get uuup, it’s important!’
‘Don’t worry Gamby, i’ll carry the both of you. Your pyjamas are adorable, i bet the others will be so jealous!’

Gambier Bay started whining, squirming and babbling incoherently. She REALLY didn’t want to show off her pyjamas to the rest of the naval district. As she failed around, the tired Saratoga soon released her, but rolled over and looked into the wall. 

Gambier Bay hurried over to a closet and grabbed her clothes. Naturally she didn't start changing until the blinds were closed and Enterprise had promised to not look. 

The bigger carrier agreed, since little gamby seemed like she'd break in half if anyone looked at her with her shirt off. After all, Enterprise had the task of getting Saratoga up. 

‘E-essex?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I think s-she needs her w-wake up drink’

‘Her what?’

Gambier Bay returned to the closet, dug around a little and then fetched a blue and silver metal can with red words on it. Enterprise wanted to look at it, but Gambier Bay suddenly jerked it out of her hands and hid it behind her back

‘Wha, E-essex, you c-can’t tell anyone!’
‘I can’t tell anyone about Saratoga’s “wake up drink, or what?’

Gambier Bay nods.

‘Alright, if you can tell my why that is’
‘Mo-’

Gambier bay stomps the floor a few times, with a blush so red it was almost glow in the dark

‘Iowa s-said so’
‘Okay, fair enough, I promise not to tell anyone’

Gambier Bay decides to trust Enterprise and gives her the can

‘Red Bull energy drink…?’

The little carrier nods

‘What’s an energy drink?’
‘I… uhh, d-don’t know. It h-helps Sara’

Groaning noises were heard from across the room, as Saratoga pulled the blanket over her head. Enterprise shrugged, struggled a little to get the can open and then offered it to Saratoga, who reluctantly took it and downed the whole thing in a matter of seconds. Gambier Bay stood next to her with her clothes. Saratoga sure looked grumpy, but she probably didn’t want to look angry at or in front of Gamby

There was a few minutes of moaning, whining and growling, but Saratoga eventually got up and followed the other two carriers to the main hall. The found a table in a corner, and waited a few minutes for the Italian Navy to arrive before Bismarck, who stood on top of a little podium on one end, started speaking

‘Before I start this, I will congratulate all of you for the outstanding performance in last nights operation. We have returned to port with only minor superficial damage. And we managed to turn the Abyssal fleet back into the deep blue. Or down it. Very well done!’

Cheering erupted among the fleetgirls, with some applauds from the american section.

‘Now, i will once again remind you that we stand under no direct obligation under the Admiral. But, i have had a request sent to me after last night's operation, which i will not refuse. You will be given a piece of paper each. Write your name on the top, and then very carefully write down anything, ANYTHING unusual seen or heard last evening and night. This is especially important for those who took part in the battle’

Enterprise was handed a slip of paper by someone she thought she was way too young to be here. Maybe they were just working for some candy money.

Leberecht Maass and Max Schultz gathered the paper slips up once they were finished, and returned them to Bismarck, whom in turn copied everything by her own pen and gave the copies over to a waiting cruiser outside. Ashigara was very polite in her demeanor, and chatted a little bit with Bismarck before returning to the Eastern Naval district. Back to the Admiral’s office. 

‘Admiral, Ashigara with the papers!’
‘Come in’

The Admiral had had better days. Buried in papers, black bags under the eyes and on the umpteenth cup of coffee. The poor soul hadn't slept a wink this night. Not that the Admiral usually slept much. 

Ashigara walked over to the already crowded desk and dropped the stack of papers. The Admiral picked up the top one

‘That’s quite a bit…’
‘Oh. Should I have asked Bismarck to-’
‘No, it will be fine. That's all for now, Ashigara-san’
‘Yes Admiral’

Ashigara went outside, leaving someone who really should sleep with a lot of work. On the top of the Pile was Ark Royal’s report. It was short, on point and not very useful. She was a carrier after all, and didn’t take part in anything other than the scouting. Aquila’s report simply stated “I didn’t see anything”. And as little use that was, Bismarck’s report came next. It was 8 pages long, written in the same small and incredibly tidy handwriting as before. 

The admiral sighed heavily enough to almost blow the papers away and reached for the mug of coffee just to find it empty. And that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The poor soul had chugged down more cups that could be counted on one hand today. But the coffee was now all out, and the face hit the desk. The Admiral groaned. A groan of someone who was really, really tired. Someone who had climbed a mountain, just to see it having been made taller.

The Admiral truly did Sisyfos’ work

‘Okay, that’s enough’

The Admiral didn’t have to look to know who was talking. That was a very familiar voice

‘Kongõ…’
‘Time for bed, let’s go’
‘No, I have to wo-’
‘Nope~ You’re not doing anything like you are now’

Kongõ leaned the seat backwards, huffed and heaved until she had managed to lift the Admiral up. She wasn’t that strong, especially not by battleship standards, but her darling would always be light enough to carry

‘Stop, I am your Admiral, I am ordering you to set me down!’
‘Shh… It’s okay. Nagato will cover fo you. We’re going to get some rest’
‘Ohnonono’

Despite the admirals protests, precious little was done to actually stop Kongõ

‘We’re gonna sleep now’
‘No, no “we” here, i can’t go to bed with-’
‘Shhh’
‘Kongõ, we can’t-’
‘Oh, there will be none of that. You’re going to sleep, and you’re not leaving the bed until you’re well rested. And i will be there to make sure you don’t try to get something done, or anyone disturbs’
‘Kongõ, you can’t just-’
‘Shush now. And yes i can’

Kongõ opened the door the the Admiral’s own room, and gently put down her precious cargo on the bed. She slowly took the uniform off, and placed it in the closet, just like the Admiral should always do, but sometimes forgets. Lastly, she tidies up a little and locked the door. With all done, she took off her own clothes as well, as much as to remain somewhat decent anyway, and joined the Admiral under the covers.

Kongõ didn’t get a chance to do that idle chatter she loved so much, but she did get to use the Admiral’s shoulder for a pillow. And for her, things didn’t get much better

‘Sleep well, darling…’

With soft snoring from inside the Admiral's room, and a looming death threat to anyone who enters, one secretary ship understood she was now in charge. Nagato adjusted her headpiece and sat down at the mess that was the Admiral’s desk. Combat reports. Two had been flipped over, deemed irrelevant. Next was Bismarck. Eight pages, sure, but it had precious little information Nagato didn’t already have. 

It seemed that none of the western ships had been touched by this phenomenon, or godlike powers. It was in fact see only the last report in the stack had anything at all of value. With a genuinely beautiful handwriting, Warspite had reported an odd radio message “A little before 01.30”. Someone she didn’t recognize asked for the wind wasn’t odd in and of itself, but the last paragraph really made Nagato wonder. It had identified itself as “Shangri-La Air Traffic Control”

Shangri-La? there was something awfully familiar about that name. She left the room and headed for the small library on the same floor, and on to a massive encyclopedia consisting of over 30 books. Sadly, it didn’t make her much wiser. The book described it as a “Mystical and harmonious valley in the Himalayas, far out of the reach for modern men” Even worse was it wasn’t actually a real place, but rather from a 1933 adventure novel, written by an Englishman of all things.

What did all this mean? And why did it sound so familiar. Nagato had heard that name before, she knew it. But she had no idea it was from a book. 

Happily, the naval district was a place with all sorts of people. Nagato found the first in the library itself, being the submarine I-8 huddled up in a corner with a book in front of her.

‘Eight?’

The little submarine blinked twice before seeing Nagato in front of her

‘Whaa!’

I-8 flew up from her seat, tried to salute, failed and started babbling incoherently

‘Easy, eight, easy’

Nagato squatted down to get somewhat on eye level to I-8 who had returned to the seat.

‘You read a lot, ever heard of Shangri-La?’
‘Mhm! It’s from Lost Horizon!’
‘Yeah, lost valley, paradise and so on. You know anything else?’

I-8 shakes her head

‘Okay, I’ll look more’

Almost instinctively, Nagato ruffles the hair of the little submarine before walking out of the library. She had two other ideas. Ooyodo or Akashi might have something. Or maybe Aoba, she kept records of all kinds of things. 

Aoba was sadly to no help at all, and couldn’t keep on topic for 15 seconds if her life so depended on it.

When Nagato got down to the comm room, Akashi was out getting lunch, but Ooyodo was there

‘Secretary ship Nagato!’
‘Ooyodo. I need to look at our records’
‘Yes, of course. What do you need?’
‘Do we have anything on Shangri-La?’
‘I think so. Let me look’

Ooyodo responded immediately and got over to the big shelves with ship lists. Nagato did look a little surprised but let the cruiser work. She soon had her finger on the middle of the page on a big book.

‘Here, USS Shangri-La, CV-38’
‘A ship!?’
‘Yes, mam. Essex-class aircraft carrier, 21st out of 24 completed’
‘What a very peculiar name for an aircraft carrier. I didn’t think the Americans named their ships after fictional places’
‘I see Nagato is read up’
I have to be as the secretary ship’ Nagato said smugly
‘It’s a reference to the 18th of April attack on Tokyo. A reporter asked the american president where the planes took off from, which he responded “Shangri-La” to, while it in reality was the USS Hornet’

Nagato narrowed her eyes into slits, and her toned changed from “calm and serious” to “calm and irritated”

‘Thank you Ooyodo. That will be all for now’